After a May 6 victory at Bloomsday, a 12K race in Spokane, Wash., that also draws more than 50,000 entrants, Parsons capped a memorable month by winning the Bolder Boulder men's professional wheelchair race on Memorial Day.

Parsons passed Aaron Pike on the final hill and held the defending champion off on Monday morning inside Folsom Field.

"This race hurts," Parsons said moments after crossing the finish line with a time of 24 minutes, 15 seconds. "It just kills you. My lungs are on fire."

Parsons broke his back 20 years ago and has been racing since the injury confined him to a wheelchair. He competed in the Bolder Boulder a couple of times in the early 1990s when Craig Blanchette was dominating the race and was the runner-up in 2010 when Saul Mendoza captured his 12th victory in the popular 10K under the Flatirons.

"It's always good to win. It makes all that training pay off," said Parsons, who was just two seconds behind Mendoza two years ago. "It makes you feel like you're doing something right."

Pike, 25, finished 10th at this year's Boston Marathon. His elite conditioning wasn't enough to beat the new champion who is twice his age.

"I don't know how he does it. He keeps going and he hasn't slowed down yet. He actually is getting faster," said Pike, who crossed the finish line right behind Parsons at 24:17. "There's a lot of guys that are in their late 40s that are still killing it. So I've got a good 20 years, I guess, going off of what he's doing."

The last three men's professional wheelchair races have been decided by a total of five seconds (Pike beat Ryan Chalmers by one second to earn the 2011 title). Parsons was able to dig deep in the thin air even though he lives and trains at sea level in San Jose, Calif.

"I've been hitting it 20 miles a day, depending on the course, five days a week at home," Parsons said after earning the $1,500 in first-place prize money. "I thought I could out-climb (Pike). Coming in here during the last stretch he was passing me up and I thought, 'Oh great.'

"I put my head down and the last bit of the hill there I got him. It was a good race."

Parsons' most difficult strategic challenge during the wheel-to-wheel stretch run with Pike? The young challenger wasn't huffing and puffing at altitude.

"He's quiet. You don't hear him breathing or anything," Parsons said. "I definitely did not know how he was going to push at the end."

Christina Schwab, who is from Lakewood and trains in Longmont, won her second Bolder Boulder women's professional wheelchair race. Her time was 27:49.

"It was a good opportunity with the weather conditions and the field," said Schwab, who was fourth in this year's Boston Marathon and whose previous Bolder Boulder title came in 2009. "I went out hard and maintained my pace."

Schwab was a star player on the U.S. wheelchair basketball team. She averaged 17.0 points and 4.5 rebounds en route to her second gold medal at the 2008 Paralympic Games.

The 31-year-old is trying to make it to London as a Paralympic track team member.

"I love the team aspect of basketball, but this sport fits into my life better as I get older," Schwab said.

Susannah Scaroni of Champaign, Ill., finished a distant second with a time of 28:32. In 2009, Schwab won a stadium sprint to beat six-time Bolder Boulder champion Shirley Reilly by one second.

"It's very inspiring," Schwab said of Parsons winning a race at 5,360 feet at the age of 53. "This is a sport like running that you can do the rest of your life."

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